Every reasonable supporter of America, Israel, or peace was up in arms Wednesday. Fatah, the negotiating party for the Palestinian people and governing body in the West Bank, reached a unity agreement with the terrorist organization Hamas that controls Gaza.
While Fatah itself still sponsors terrorists and the official government television station still features anti-Semitism on a daily basis, that’s a story for another time.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was clear, asserting, “Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.” Even U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki stated, “The timing was troubling and we were certainly disappointed in the announcement.”
But what is most telling is the public reaction of the leftist organization J Street: “J Street regards today’s news of a preliminary agreement on political reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas with caution and urges the United States to press forward with an even more assertive effort to forge a two-state solution.”
Let’s be clear: Hamas is a genocidal, Jew-hating organization. The Hamas Covenant states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” The covenant also reads, “This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realized.”
J Street labels itself “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” but its reaction Wednesday shows that it is guided only by an extremist, hard-left ideology that has no use for reality or any practical analysis of the situation.
Rather than condemn Fatah for choosing to unite with the murderers of Hamas over peace with Israel and release a statement that fittingly condemns this now unified Palestinian hate-entity, J Street panicked and ran to embrace its deepest values and core belief: blame for the conflict must be placed on Israel alone; Arab hatred of Jews comes primarily from Israeli actions; and Palestinian leadership must be forgiven whenever possible.
Caution?
To the clear-minded folk, negotiations with the Palestinian Authority are over. They had an option, and they chose a terrorist group over Israel. Not for J Street. To them, the idea that Arab reconciliation could be a bad thing is too much to handle.
J Street even sought to mock those who expressed concern over the PA/Hamas embrace. They tweeted:
Someone should whisper to J Street president Jeremy Ben Ami: ‘Unity’ with a group that wants to kill Jews is a bad thing.
When the comparatively moderate Palestinian Authority unites with the internationally recognized terrorist organization Hamas, this represents a step backwards. To the leftists at J Street, this is incomprehensible. There can be no going back. For them, any agreement, even one with a group who is pledging to continue murdering your women and children, is a good agreement.
On Thursday, J Street again confirmed their alternative reality, releasing a statement titled “Israeli Decision to Suspend Talks is Premature.” J Street wrote, “With five days left before the deadline for Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace initiative, all involved should be searching for purposeful actions to revive the troubled process, not accelerating its demise.”
No, The Onion did not write that press release. The organization insists on creating Israeli guilt, as if the government could have prevented Fatah from officially linking with Hamas. For them, there has to be some element of inappropriate activity on the part of the Israelis in a given story. J Street also called out the United States, writing, “It is premature for either the Israeli government or the US Congress to take steps to punish the Palestinian Authority for this reconciliation agreement before the composition and policies of the new government are known.”
J Street refuses to accept that violent Islamist terrorists may well maintain their current worldview even with negotiations. There must be something that can be done.
Major Jewish organizations realize the irrationality of J Street’s positions and activities, which is why there is tremendous pushback before the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations vote on J Street’s membership on April 30th. For many, this ‘inclusion’ is unacceptable for a host of reasons, including the fact that J Street U members were recently exposed wearing shirts that read, “Resistance is not terrorism.” As the Washington Free Beacon put it: “Palestinian terrorists and their western supporters, now including members of J Street U, employ the phrase in the hope of counteracting the commonly held belief that murdering Israeli men, women, and children in suicide bombings and shootings constitutes terrorism.”
The fact that J Street lacks the courage to call Fatah out for its murderous intentions and malicious partnerships speaks to the moral incompetence and unjust agenda of the organization. If that wasn’t enough, their insistence on creating Israeli ‘guilt’ whenever possible is even more alarming. An organization that is incapable of taking a hard stance against Palestinian leadership and attempts to demonize the only Middle Eastern democracy can’t call itself pro-peace, pro-Israel, or pro-America.
Daniel Mael is a reporter for www.TruthRevolt.org.
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